The Marble Temple

We had a three-day holiday weekend for Maka Bucha Day, so I didn't have to work this Monday. I just stayed in Bangkok this time though. I had a bunch of chores to do and I really just felt like being lazy and getting some rest.

But on Monday we woke up to some nice cool weather in Bangkok! It was a perfect day for a walk outside, so I decided to go visit the famous Wat Benchamabophit, the "Marble Temple".

Marble Temple

To me, it's the quintessential Thai-style temple. It's definitely one of Bangkok's better-known temples, and even appears on the reverse of the five-Baht coin. Tourists coming to Bangkok might not be familiar with the name of this temple, like they might be with Wat Pho or Wat Arun, but most everyone will recognize its iconic design.

statues on the canal

A lot of tours visit the Marble Temple, but it's never that crowded. The grounds are large and spacious, and there are vendors selling ice cream or bread to feed the fish in the canals running between the temple buildings.

Wat Bencha might be a bit out of the way for tourists staying downtown, but it's just down the road from where I live, and not so far from the Skytrain and Airport Rail Link either.

stained glass inside the temple building

The temple was built in 1899, and is a royal-grade Thai temple. It was built for King Chulalongkorn the beloved fifth king of the current dynasty. The temple is built of Italian marble, with beautiful stained-glass windows inside the main building.

inside the main sanctuary

So I got a nice long walk outside in the cool weather and got to enjoy my relaxing day off.

It's that time of year right before final exams when I never really have very much to write about. My last two months were really prolific, and I don't want to lose my blogging momentum! If I haven't done anything super exciting, I'll try to post more of my daily life stuff which may seem normal to me now, but friends and family back home might still be interested in seeing, like this post. I realized even though I live just down the road from the Marble Temple, I've never written a post about it. My brother mentioned it in his travelogue a while back, but I think it might be interesting to post a few pictures from my walk today.

But I have a few adventures coming up, and a very exciting visit to Bangkok from my family that I'm really looking forward to!